"To be fair, I didn't know I had that instinct either, before that morning we spent together."

It touches something soft in him to hear about Vax fretting over him, wondering if he's well. He knows it's no slight on Molly, Vax wouldn't think about it like that. Or, rather, the husband Fjord trusted so implicitly wouldn't have.

He looks at Vax's hands in his, turning around on the bed to better see him and tucking under a bent leg. He smooths over slender fingers, resting the pads of two of his own over the instep of a pulse on Vax's wrist.

"I think about how much I like your smile."